Heart Shaped Locket
by kagomefire
Summary: It's taken more than 10 years, and a life changing event for Inuyasha to realize just what he has lost.


The sunset was a brilliant splash of oranges and pinks. The breeze cool and light, the touch of a feather upon skin. The waves crashed against the shore, and she breathed in the salty air, the sand. Birds flashed across her eyes, flying high above the horizon, just above the setting sun. She breathed slowly, stepped carefully, not wanting to upset the beautiful ruffle of white silk that was wrapped around her body. A strapless show of softly flowered silk ran from the swell of her breasts, to the tips of her hips, then flaring out in a soft array of flowing silk, the train trailing behind her, leaving a trailing path of pushed sand.

Her hand came up and brushed the loose wisps of her hair away from her face. Her stormy grey gaze swept the land, settling on the white canopy's and ivory chairs in the distance. She smiled softly. A man she loved would be waiting for her within the hour. Standing tall and handsome at the end of the alter, their future in his smile. She laughed gently at the wind that played with her hair. She never thought this day would come. She never knew this man would be the one with fulfilled promises and love whispers. Yes, she had always loved him, but some where in her heart had been a love for another man. A stronger, deeper, more passionate love. Her first love.

"Hey sis!"

Kagome glanced up. Her brother stood at the crest of a sand hill, looking handsome as ever with his 19 year old self in a black tux, yet he still waved to her with both arms flailing wildly like he did when he was little. She smiled, a full genuine, open mouthed smile, and he returned it.

"What is it Souta? Are they ready for me already?" Puzzled, she glanced at her watch, she still had twenty minutes before all the people were to be seated. She looked back up, hearing the slow foot steps.

"Nope. Some strange guy is looking for you. He looks kind of familiar, but when I asked him his name, he wouldn't answer. All he said was he was looking for you." Souta scratched his chin. "Come to think of it, I don't really think I do remember him. He just looks kinda odd. Weird eyes." He shrugged, and headed off without leaving Kagome time to respond. He glanced over his shoulder, "I'll tell him you're down here. I've got to go find Amara. She's supposed to be here soon."

"Thanks Souta," She said, shaking her head. Some things just didn't change. She turned her back on her impending engagement and started walking a little more. She loved the beach, it was the most beautiful place in the world to her. With the open sea, the salt air and the calls of the wild, she couldn't find any place to compare to this. It was the perfect place for her wedding.

A hand closed over her shoulder, and she started. She turned around fast, the quick action sending her loose hair across her face and over her shoulders. She gasped, coming face to face with piercing gold eyes.

"Hey," He whispered softly, removing his hand from her shoulder.

Standing there in jeans and just the white shirt he always wore under his red fire rat kimono, he looked every bit as handsome as he did 13 years ago.

"Some things don't change," She whispered back. "You still love scaring me." She tilted her head. "What are you doing here, Inuyasha?"

He glanced down, taking in her attire. He never did approve of that hideous green out fit she always wore, but this one was stunning. She looked absolutely radiant. Her dark hair was softly curled, pulled up and away from her face, but little wisps still fell to frame her face, and kiss her shoulders. A thin golden chain held fast around her neck, pulled against the front of her throat, as if weight by something on the other side. He swore softly, then met her gaze, and started walking down the shore line, taking her hand softly in his. A sign for her to come with him.

"I've missed you," He whispered softly, his face toward the setting sun.

"I've missed you too, Inuyasha." She squinted against the sun, bringing her free hand to her eyes to shield the glare, and peered into his face. A feeling buried deep in her soul so long ago resurfaced, shooting in her heart. But she smiled nonetheless. "What is all this about?"

"Ever since you left to return to your time, I've always wondered if I had done the right thing by letting you go. If I had been stupid not to stop you, to tell you I wanted you to stay, to stay by my side, and never leave. I thought I was right in closing up the well to keep you from coming back, so you could return to your side and finish what you wanted to do there." He smiled. "To study at that stupid school of yours. To become the person you were meant to be."

A silence fell over them, Kagome remembering the time she couldn't enter the well, and Inuyasha remembering the time he sealed it up. Their fingers were still intertwined, softly swaying with their walk. She didn't look at him, but she asked again, "Why are you here, Inuyasha? Why did you come? Now of all times."

He stopped moving, and pulled her around, his hands gripping her shoulders firmly. "To get you back." He didn't stop. "I was stupid, I was wrong. I know that now. But I need you with me. I need you to come back to me. We all need you. Not because of your ancestral heritage, but because I love you. Because I've always loved you, even when I hated you. You're the only woman that I've ever been able to hate and love at the same time. The only woman I ever want to love again, and the only one I'll ever be able to settle down and spend my life with." He took a deep breath. "So please come back to me, to us, to what we could have had if I hadn't been such a thick headed jerk." His eyes pleaded with her. "Please."

Her heart constricted, a pain deep in her soul that felt as if she was being torn into. Not even a mile down the shore line, a man was getting ready to read her his vows, to take her hand in marriage, to offer her the life she dreamed of when she was a little girl. And here, in front of her, was the one man she had always wanted and never had. The one man that held the purest part of her soul, the strongest beat of her heart. And she couldn't do it. A single tear slid down her cheek, falling on his hand, and he realized what was happening. He was losing her.

"I can't, Inuyasha." She took in a mangled breath. "I just can't. I came to you at a time in my life where I was most vulnerable. I set aside all my dreams and aspirations for you, hoping to be reciprocated. I loved you, wholly, deeply and passionately. There wasn't a moment I didn't think about you, about what we could be. About who we could be." She felt his hands fall from her shoulders. "I love you, Inuyasha. I always have, and I always will. But right now, I have a man that I love waiting for me, expecting to see me walking toward him, and that's where my future lies. I can't leave him, Inuyasha. I can't leave him like you left me."

A pregnant pause fell over them until Kagome sighed. She reached up and unclasped the necklace from around her neck. Hidden by her hair, turned around, had been a small heart shaped-golden locket, with a bow and arrow on one side of the heart, and a sword on the other. She took his left hand, opened it, and placed the locket in the center of his palm, then closed his fingers around it. "I had this made the day I found out I could never get through the well again. It was a part of me and a part of you, the past that we shared. This was my only memory of it." Inuyasha opened it up, and inside the locket sat a picture of Kagome kissing Inuyasha on the cheek in a playful manner, and on the other side sat a picture of Inuyasha, his arms around her shoulders, her head cocked, the sunlight catching them just as the picture was taken. He closed it, and then closed his fist around it and looked at her.

Pain flashed in his eyes, and a tear fell down his cheek. She took a step forward, placed her hands on either side of his face, and kissed him softly, gently. She poured all her feelings for him into that one kiss, not putting any more distance between or closer to them. She breathed in the familiar scent of him. Of pine and trees and fresh grass. Of dirt and soil, and cherry blossoms. And he did so with hers, a mix of pure essence, of sunlight and moonlight. Of flowers from her time, and traces of soil from his. A link they didn't know was there. Their tears mingled on each others lips, and Kagome pulled away, certain when she walked away, her heart would lay at his feet once more.

"I do love you," He whispered.

Kagome walked, a bouquet of flowers in her hands at the middle of her stomach. She smiled at Hojo, who was standing at the alter, happiness and love shining in his eyes. The violins played softly as she walked, arm in arm with her grandfather who was sniffling and she smiled softly. Here was her future, in the arms of the man at the end of the alter. Her past was with the man she gave her heart and soul too, and this was the man she gave the rest of her heart, her dreams, and her future to. She passed her three best gals and winked at them as they stood sniffling, but looking gorgeous in their pale dresses. She stopped just at the end, turned and kissed her grandfather on the cheek.

"You look gorgeous, my dear Kagome."

"Thank you Grandfather. For everything."

Kagome turned away from her grandfather, and stood in front of Hojo, and smiled, tears shining in her eyes. She ignored the brush of white that she saw behind the rows of chairs, that sat down. She knew it was probably Inuyasha.

Kagome didn't breath through the opening of her wedding. She couldn't think. She just kept staring into Hojo's deep brown eyes, warmed by the love and the adoration in them. She held her breath again when the priest started the vows.

"Do you, Johnson Hojo, take this woman, to be you're lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do you part?

Hojo smiled at her. "I do."

"And do you, Higurashi Kagome, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do you part?"

Kagome looked up at Hojo, his smiling face, and lost herself to the music. She could feel Inuyasha's gaze and knew he was watching, waiting, hoping, for any sign of the love she held for him to over come her. Her heart longed for the first man she fell in love with, but she knew this is where she belonged. She just hoped she was right.

"I do."

* * *

A man in a white lab technician coat swept through the door, his cool gaze meeting the young intern's in the room. "Identification?" 

"No sir. No ID was found on him. We searched his jean pockets but found no ID, keys, little slips of paper, nothing. He carried nothing in his pockets." The young woman paused, and glanced at the John Doe that was covered to the chin by a thin blue standard blanket.

"What is it?"

"There was no mark of bodily harm, nothing that could suggest murder, on the outside anyway. The blood results," she flipped through the chart, pushing her hair out of her face, "came back clean. No drugs, no steroids, no poisons, that could have caused his death. And no, he wasn't asphyxiated," she added quickly, seeing him open his mouth.

The doctor glanced at the man on the morgue slab. "Have you gotten his hand open yet?" He looked at the man's left hand, then back at the girl. She frowned.

"Not quite yet. The muscle relaxants I gave him 10 minutes ago are starting to go into effect, but slowly. I've gotten two fingers, his index and his middle, pulled up slightly, and it looks," She gestured for him to come around the table, and they peered close at the mans' slightly open hand. "As if he were holding a chain."

"How can you be so sure, you can't even see anything in his hand yet." The doctor could already see how she had come to that conclusion, but the young woman was, after all, his intern, so he let asked the question.

"It appears as though he was holding it tightly enough, that there were small oval marks on his fingers." She tapped a small device on the inside of John Doe's fingers. "They are very close, almost touching, and some overlap the others, as if it were...a necklace of some sort."

John Doe's arm shot up, then fell back down. The doctor remained impassive, but the intern shrieked, dropping the file. She then scooped it back up, berating her self mentally. Of course there was nothing to worry about. It was just the muscle relaxant. The doctor quirked an eyebrow in her direction and she blushed, but said nothing. Putting the file down, next to John Doe's leg, she pried open his fingers.

"Ah ha!" She pulled it out gently, not wanting it to break. Both doctor and intern scrutinized it carefully, opening and closing it, looking for a sign. The doctor sighed wearily, rubbing his hand over his face.

"This is the strangest case I've ever had," He murmured.

The intern nodded her head pensively. "No toxins, murder, heart failure, heart attack, siezure, or stroke." She bit her lip. "I recognize the woman though, in the picture. It's the same woman that was in the paper just yesterday. Got married to some hot shot surgeon." She stopped, looked at the doctor. "It looks as though his heart just... stopped."

The doctor scoffed. "Are you suggesting he lacked the will to live? Or that he, and that woman had some illicit affair and she betrayed him, so he tripped himself an invisible drug and committed suicide?" Turning his back on her, he started toward the door. "You have much to learn before you become a doctor, if that is your belief."

She glanced back down at the man, lying cold and lifeless on the slab.

"No," She whispered thoughtfully, "I'm suggesting he died of heartbreak."

With that, the young intern left the room, shutting of the light and shutting the door.. A sliver of light reached the table before the door closed, close to John Doe. A heart shaped locket, with a sword on one side and a bow and arrow on the other, twinkled dimly in the dying light.


End file.
